Colegio Rauquen´s Anniversary

Today was the presentation for homecoming court. I am the homecoming (in spanish "anniversary") queen of my team There are four teams of students and this week there are dozen of activities. Throughout the week (mainly today and tomorrow) we compete in EVERY activity. I have to represent my team. I was so suprised to be picked at queen because usually the exchangers arent even considered but well..... i was! The picture on the left is me and the king of our team (alianza) before our presentation.

We came into the gym in a car. I was wearing this purple dress that was completely, utterly, see everything tight. I really have put on weight here :) Then i changed my clothes and did a tap dance. Most of the people here have no idea what it is. They kinda just stared and didnt know what else to do. Then he sang a song and we danced and then came our salsa routine. I learned salsa! Im trying to load a video, we´ll see how it ends up working. There were a lot of technical difficulties and because of that, and disorganization in general, we went over our time and lost a lot of points. The choreography in the tap piece is that of my tap teacher in Minneapolis, Kaleena Miller (I wanted to make sure i noted that). Im still happy with our presentation though because it was a TON different than the rest of them.

Then tonight i had to make an original dress (made out of something different than fabric) we didnt know we had to make it until about 5, and it was for 8 oclock! So we rushed and made one of out black trash bags, chip bags, and coke tops. It ended up being really cool looking! and our team got the most points for that section! Right now my team (naranja our mascote being a fanta bottle) is in second place! Ill try to get the pictures from my friend to put up.

The photo on the left is a picture of all the girls in my class (11 and there are 38 people in our class, puro hombres) doing our cheerleader routine. We ended up making it up all together and it ended up being really cute. We are going to perform it tomorrow as part of anniversary.

below is a picture of me and karina after our presentation.

La Virgen del Carmen

So sorry! This blog seems to be going down hill because I have been so bad at updating! Im trying not to use the computer very much because I need to improve my Spanish and well.... typing in English doesnt help that. Between the time it takes to type a message for my blog and load all my pictures up, it takes like 45 minutes to write an entry.

But, now to an actual update. Last weekend there was a parade in Curicó. the whole weekend was festivities and so I didnt have school yesterday! I feel like every week here there is something going on! I believe the base of the festivities was the parade of the Virgin Carmen. A bunch of men walk her statue through all the streets of Curicó. It was so beautiful!

A common amazing Chilean thing that I see here is the muscians in the picture to the left. They have a strap connected to their foot so that when they stomp, it bangs some tamborines (is that the word?) together above their head. They also use sticks to bang on their drums and sometimes have a harmonica in their mouth. Then, they start to dance really fast in a circle, keeping all the instrument sounds in a rythm. It is super hard and really cool to watch. On Sunday there was a whole group of them playing in the Plaza with a bunch of little boys too, it was so cute!

After the parade, I wanted to take a picture next to a huaso on a horse. When I tried to take the picture, he jumped off his horse and insisted that I take it ON the horse. So, remembering my horse camp training and manuvering with a skirt, I swumg myself up there and took a picture. So there it is!

Yesterday was "dia de los tios", the equivalent of "teacher appreciation day". It was a complete surprise for our teachers. We gave our homeroom teachers presents and then had an auditorium. But what I thought was really funny is what happened with out home room teacher. He is our professor de gym class. Every time there is a birthday here (on ly for the boys), all their classmates basically ambush them, grab their legs and arms and in a circle fling them into the air. The they bring them back down until they almost touch the ground and all kid the birthday kid in the butt and fling them back up again. They count up to the number of years the birthday kid is turning. Ive heard that it really is painful..... im sure it is.,... well yesterday they did it to my profe! I dont know why he ended up agreeing but he did... Chile is so different than the US.

Last thursday Fani competed in a debate, in English! and they received third place! I was so proud of her! I got to go and us American girls rode in the back of our teacher´s pick-up truck to debates. That was random but I had to fit it in.

During the auditorium yesterday, Fani performed a traditional Chilean dance with her classmates, in front of the school! Here is that picture.

Alright and the last piece of information is that this morning I was on my way to school on my bike. I had made it only to my corner, saw an escolar (kinda like a school bus but a yellow van) and stopped at the corner. I should have stopped more on the sidewalk but my the front wheel was partly in the street. The driver didnt watch at all, went to turn into the street and pulled my bike under the van. I jumped completely off my bike and watched it fall under the van. the lady jumpe out and startd yelling at me and then a witness started yelling at her and it was just a mess. Luckily im not hurt and the police are talking to the women to make her pay for the bike. hopefully she will.. it´s completely wrecked. I guess I just have bad luck with bikes huh?

Thanks for reading this and hopefully the long entry partly made up for like lack of writing.

Love and miss you all!

Bike crash

Hey everyone!

I have a story... so yesterday I was at soccer pratice and it went really well anyways...I was on my way home from practice on my bike and it was getting dark to so i was trying to hurry a little. There was someone walking in front of me on the sidewalk and so I tried to kinda manuver around. My front wheel kinda fell into a crack, im not exactly sure what happened, and I fell completely over and hit my head on a metal fence. I was all alone and frustrated and in pain. Some teenager helped me up and then walked off into a store. So, i limped home half walking, half biking the whole way.

Now I have a bruise on my face and a killer scratch on my leg the size of a CD. It hurts so bad to walk! But I insisted on going to school today and it ended up being a great day.

During physical education the girls in my class decide to present a cheerleader dance instead of doing the physical tests (everyone here is OBSESSED with the idea of cheerleaders. And it makes sense because almost every chick flick is somehow centered around them. When i got here that was one of the three questions asked "Que typo de musica te gusta? Tienes un pololo en EEUU? Eres un cheerleader?" heheehe.) And then they realized that they dont know any cheerleader steps and of course the assumed I did. Which, i mean, i do know some but not very many. I showed them a few and now Im going to make up the whole dance! It should actually be really fun and painful considering my current condition with my leg but yep, im going to do that now.

(Sorry to write this for everyone to see but Linda, I did get your card. Thanks so much and I have been trying to reach you since I was in Miami. Now that I have your card I will send you a letter through the mail (I wrote it like 2 months ago) and hopefully we can get e-mail working too. Grandpa, I got your card too. thanks! Ive been writing you a card to send also. Laurel, you know ive gotten all your cards, thanks so much!)

But yep, thats all for now. I kind consider this week my first week as a real student here. Something just clicked and now I really think I can do most everything. It takes a very long time to do assignments though..... but i learn a ton of spanish and at the same time, lose a ton of english!!!!!!!!! noo!!!!!!!!!

I love getting snail mail from people! Im not going to put my address up here because technically everyone in the world can read this but e-mail me Luraenchile@gmail.com and I would love to send it to you!

Thanks for all the love and support!

Biking to the Mountains

So guess what i did today?

biked 40 miles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (60 kilos)

Yesterday i was in gym class and my teacher asked me if i wanted to bike to los queñes. I knew it was VERY far but I said I would go. Kozue agreed to go with me. So this morning we set out at about 8:30. Most of the kids going were from the Rauquen middle school. I´m kinda confused as to why we got to go. But, we left and biked for a few hours to the mountains. i was so tired!

Once we reached the mountains there was a dirt road, completely uphill. I started going up it but then i felt really feverish. I dont know if it was the altitude or what. But, we rode in the car the rest of the way up. then after lunch i was going to go and bike the part i missed but i almost fell over when i tried to start on the bike so, i got back in the car.

Once we got to the paved section I got back on my bike and rode all the way home.

Now i´m just so sun burnt! because people dont really use sun screen here so i always forget im so much more fair than people here. My whole face is like a tomato!!!!!!!!! and speaking of tomatos, did you all know that cutting a tomato in half and then rubbing it on a sunburn makes it heal faster? yep, learned that here.

The graffiti here is so different. The picture above is of me at a bus stop. It seems that most of the graffiti here is not tags, its messages of love. "Soledad te amo" means "i love you soledad."Its just so interesting. The other griffiti here tends to be messages of protest written by different racial groups.

Chile is just so gorgeous! I love it so much here. I cant even explain!

fani´s birthday and debate

Hey guys!

Saturday was Fani´s birthday party. It was really fun. Some of her friends came over and we just danced all night. They were trying to teach me how to dance like a chilean.... its difficult. The dances here are hard because in between like meringue and cumbía there are like these choreographed danced that EVERYONE knows. And i just stand there looking ridiculous!

Today was debate day at school. I had to debate in favor of the death penalty. My team was all the exchange girls. We had to debate first in english and then summarize in spanish. It was hard because the english ( i had a surprising amount of trouble with it) went fast but the spanish was a lot harder. We had not been told exactly what to do or how the debate was going to work. Somehow we ended up doing mostly history of the death penalty and i had to give the arguments. but, it ended up working out just fine.

Yesterday was my first soccer game! we lost both games but it doesnt matter because I played! I´m not very good but I tried and felt really tough when i got smacked in the head by a soccer ball and kept playing.

Well that´s all for now!